Electrical connectors are provided in many different varieties for numerous applications. In the computer and microelectronics industry, electrical connectors may be provided in two separate portions designed to mate with each other. There is an incentive in the industry to provide smaller connectors. Connectors may be employed to electrically join conductive traces from one circuit board to another. Such a connector may provide a grid or array of connection points on opposite surfaces. A two-part connector may be electrically mated on a mating surface and then meshed to conductive traces of the circuit board on opposite mounting surfaces.
Ball grid array connectors typically use solder portions known as “solder balls” on the ends of contact elements. Solder balls may be positioned and then reflowed upon a contact, thereby providing the connector with an electrical pathway to a conductive trace or circuit board. When a solder ball or an array of balls are placed against a circuit board, the solder ball may be heated and reflowed to melt the balls upon the conductive trace, resulting in a secure soldered electrical connection. Many different types of ball grid array connectors are known.
Many prior art connection devices use a gender specific first part employing a male contact portion that is designed for mating with a female receiver which has a different configuration. Thus, the first “male” portion inserts into a cavity or “female” portion, which results in a secure electrical connection.
Unfortunately, the use of gender specific connector parts is costly. Distributors and manufacturers employing such connectors must stock and hold inventory for both the male and female parts. This undesirably increases the amount of inventory that must be maintained. Furthermore, having both male and female portions sometimes results in confusion regarding which part is needed when orders are placed. This problem may be compounded when multiple sized arrays are used. For example, if specific connector arrays of 100, 200, 400, and 800 contacts are needed in the industry, then a manufacturer usually must have assembly lines, drawings, tooling, part numbers, packaging and the like to correspond with each and every different sized array that must be manufactured for the various end users. If gender-specific male and female components are used, the number of separate parts employed is increased by a factor of two. The large number of separate parts needed to make each array combination is a significant limitation.
Another problem with male/female combination contacts is that in many such devices, only one gender portion undergoes displacement. That is, it is common that only one of such a mated pair actually is displaced when mating occurs. For connectors to achieve smaller size, the distance or space within the housing that is available for displacement of contacts is sometimes a critical factor. An arrangement that is capable of minimizing the total linear displacement required for contact elements to resilient mate within a connector housing while still achieving satisfactory electrical conductivity would be highly desirable.
Some prior art methods and apparatus employ indentations or depressed portions in the insulative base material. During manufacture, solder portions are placed in such indentations for reflow to contacts. However, the use of indentations in an insulative base requires relatively precise machining of the insulative base. This sometimes increases the cost of such components. Furthermore, disturbances or voids in such a base unit may undesirably weaken the unit. This may require that the base unit having such voids be engineered with an even greater thickness to provide a comparable strength.
It would be desirable to provide an apparatus and method for manufacturing connector arrays that employs insulative bases having relatively flat surfaces. A method or apparatus that provides a means to provide solder portions upon a flat surface which are fused upon contacts, would be desirable. A connector array that makes available numerous connection sites in a relatively precise geometrical arrangement that uses only small amounts of material would be desirable. Furthermore, a connection device or system that avoids the need to make and stock excess parts by avoiding the employment of both male and female portions in a multi-part connector would be very helpful. An array that is modular, and which can be assimilated into large groups for larger arrays, or smaller groups for smaller arrays, would also be very useful.